our charming little christmas home

i dreamed and dreamed and dreeeeamed of these stockings last christmas, but they sold out over the season. i finally snagged them this year, and i’ve been so in love!! also, i had to get creative with the glittered initials, because i didn’t have an L for the baby. i searched the world over, and finally found a similar E on ebay. after a little ornament surgery, you’d never know, right?!

never a shortage of vince guaraldi trio on the record player or sweet little silhouettes!

santa and his reindeer were my grandmother’s. she was so good at christmas!

i keep trying to find the perfect ways to have all of our past christmas cards around. we have so many at this point! our most recent 4 years are my favs.

christmas things that add up over the years… 🙂 maddalena’s painted nativity plate from school. my grandmother’s candle snuffer. a copy of my great-grandmother’s painting from long ago! that and my nativity snow globe stay out year-round, though. i love them so much.

year after year i forget to get a little barn for this nativity set! so, the lady at our favorite little antique shop gave me a basket and told me to chop it in half and make a barn. so i did! it was so fun and fulfilling to accomplish, haha! maddalena loves to set this scene up for me every year, and i vividly remember being little and setting up ours, too.

it’s always a pink christmas for maddalena! and still has her handmade baby jesus. same craft i did with my mom when i was little!!

i love precious rocco’s handsome holiday adornments! those red trucks are always his favorite.

this year we got baby luca a little tree for his room, and it’s just the sweetest little tree on earth.

no school separating these angel babies is my happy place. and sure, of course they quarrel! wouldn’t it be weird if they didn’t? that’s how you learn to deal with the rest of life, i think.

sweet girl made us this sign hanging on our closet door!

dollar tree lanterns and target dollar spot cookies make for some perfect kids’ kitchen delight!

it’s stella pup’s first christmas!

…aaaand let’s hope these gifties survive some time under the tree, given all the little hands and paws that like to dabble there!

it’s taken me a whole bunch of years to kind of figure out a good holiday decor balance for our house! of course, it’s always magical to deck the halls… but most of the time i’ve just ended up feeling covered in clutter, which is one of my least favorite feelings. and while i was maaaaade for all the holiday gold and glitter, i’ve really never liked the color red! somehow, though, i still felt obligated to it around the holidays. so, once it occurred to me that i was feeling less than enthusiastic for holiday decor, i started doing some tweaking… and this year i finally feel like i love the simple touches that we have in each room. and guess what?! pink is diluted red! TA-DA!!! best realization ever. also, steven has our front tree decorated in white lights, and it makes us so happy to pull up to!